Principles for Relationships from God's Word by Claudio Consuegra

Marriage makes better fathers – 1

The LORD delighted only in your fathers, to love them; and He chose their descendants after them, you above all peoples, as it is this day. Deuteronomy 10:15 (NKJV)

Philadelphia columnist and best-selling author Solomon Jones, recently described his experience with non-custodial fatherhood as a “disjointed tapestry of love and distance, longing and hurt.” Jones has a daughter from his first marriage. As he explains, a dad living away from his child “can be reduced to little more than a voice on a phone, a playmate on a weekend or a name on a check.” He adds that living apart from his first child, “was painful because a father’s love is so often expressed through providing and protecting. And it’s difficult to provide and protect without presence.” On another column he expanded on this theme, “fatherhood works best when it is paired with motherhood and sealed by marriage.”

Alysse ElHage[i] says that a survey by the National Fatherhood Initiative found that 81 percent of dads agreed that, “men generally perform better as fathers if they are married to the mothers of their children.” In addition, men who did not live with their “focal child” (the one the survey asked about) were more likely than those who did to say that “they did not spend enough time with that child and that they did not feel very close to that child.”

According to David Blankenhorn, founder and president of the Institute for American Values, historically, “nurturant fatherhood has rested securely on two foundations: co-residency with children and a parental alliance with their mother.” Unfortunately, on average dads who do not live with their kids are less involved in their lives and have poorer relationships with them than resident fathers. A 2013 CDC report[ii] found that dads who lived with their children were significantly more likely to eat meals, play with, and read to their children regularly than non-resident fathers.

ElHage also presents additional research which shows that fathers experience hormonal changes during his wife’s pregnancy, with lover testosterone levels and a resulting lower hostility toward the infant once born. (will be continued tomorrow).